Having a decent amount of knowledge about the orcs on the southern isle, Jadeth takes the lead in coming up with a plan to help Port Battleborn and convince the champion of Alandreas to help them. She pitches her operation: Orcs in a Barrel. She states that her and Slender can put on a show in the middle of the orc camp. They’ll keep all the orcs distracted with displays of magic and music while Matanza and Olaf look for the leader of the settlement: a warlord. With the rest of the camp distracted, Olaf can kidnap the warlord, and they can find a way to take control of the settlement. Slender likes the idea, because he sees it as a way to become king of another group of monsters.
Juno is confused on what her role in the plan is, and Jadeth informs her that she has the most important role of all: staying the hell away from the camp. If Juno is recognized as an elf, the orcs and ogres will no doubt try to kill her, and Jadeth isn’t willing to stake Juno’s life. Juno argues that her medallion of thoughts could be an invaluable asset in finding the warlord or ensuring the orcs are properly distracted.
Jadeth retorts that since Juno is a citizen of Port Battleborn she falls under Jadeth’s rule as the rightful heir of the Caldran empire. At that, Juno laughs in her face since Jadeth is currently public enemy number one. Jadeth is forced to admit that the plan makes more sense to bring her along, but she demands that Juno keeps her hood up at all times.
As the group begins their way through the jungle, they see a cozy looking hammock strung between two large palm trees; it looks to be made entirely of vines like someone had weaved them together. Drunk as shit, Olaf asks for a boost into it. Jadeth helps him up, but he sees that there’s already a woman fast asleep in the hammock. Jadeth asks what the move is, and he laughs before telling her he still wants to try to climb in next to her.
She gives him a boost, but right before he can get onto the hammock, the trees move it out of his reach. He nearly falls off of Jadeth’s shoulders, but the two follow it as it moves around slowly through the woods. The rest of the party watches them fail at sexual harassment, but after missing so many times, Olaf jumps off of Jadeth’s shoulders and grabs an unwilling Slenderbard to throw him towards the hammock at high speed.
Slender flies through the air, but before he can get onto the hammock, he’s intercepted by one of the nearby trees. He smashes into it face first and crumples onto the ground, yelling at Olaf. Juno peaks into the hammock to see that it’s their friend Anny, the druid from Argos’ team. She calls Anny’s name, and one of her ravens descends from the sky to speak for Anny as she continues laying in her hammock.
While speaking through the raven, Anny greets the group, and Juno introduces her as the druid who helped them reach Argosia– the place they received their world saving quest. Anny admits it has been hard work trying to prevent Argos from fully spying on them. She was a member of Argos’ old team, so Jadeth asks if she can tell her anything about the woman named Amare since Argos threatened her when she brought the name up. Anny shakes her head and just lets Jadeth know that she died a long time ago. She also makes it very clear that Argos is no longer her friend. She slides out of the hammock gracefully as the vines untwist and move back to their trees.
Olaf turns bright red from the sight of such a pretty woman and tries to offer her a gift, but Slender quickly stops him before he can pluck a flower since a druid will really not like that. Anny leans in and gives Olaf a boop on the nose to tell him he’s cute. Anny waves and wishes the group luck before stepping through a portal that she opens in a tree. Once again the group is alone, or so they think.
Right after Anny vanishes, a whisper cuts through the air in elvish: “Death to my enemies!” An arrow suddenly comes flying through the forest to pierce Juno’s shoulder. She wails that there is an archer nearby, and the group prepares for an ambush. Jadeth rushes to her side and steps the two of them through a dimensional door to get off the main path. She hastily yanks the arrow from Juno’s shoulder and tries to patch her up with healing magic.
Jadeth pulls her weighted die from her pocket and imbues it with a magical radius of darkness before tossing it down at Juno’s feet and heading back up towards the road to figure out where the arrow came from. Juno tries to use her cloak to fly, but the runes glow and fail from something blocking the magic. She curses and readies her bow, but her sight blurs from the toxin that was in the arrow that hit her.
Slender calls out that there’s a camp across the stream, but Juno yells that it didn’t come from the camp. Jadeth ignites the eyes on her mask of darkness before moving in the direction that the sniper is firing from. Olaf asks Matanza to chuck him towards the camp so he can scout it out and check to see what the deal is with this ambush. Matanza throws him before ducking into cover as even more arrows fly overhead. Another catches Juno, so grabs ahold of the die that Jadeth enchanted and moves towards better cover. Slender slides down the ledge and helps treat Juno’s poison before it can cause more harm.
Jadeth summons her magical armor and begins running up the ledges towards the location of the sniper. She quickly comes under fire from the other archers hiding in the bushes, but before she can get any closer to them, a powerful bounty hunter leaps from the bushes to strike her with his greatsword. Blood splatters the ground at her feet, and she looks up at him in a panic with her glowing eyes.
She yells for help, and Matanza comes running to her aid. Slender leaves Juno down at the bottom of the hill and climbs up to see Matanza and Jadeth dealing with the bounty hunter. He places a brand on Jadeth, and she retreats behind Matanza with a thundering boom that enrages the hunter.
Olaf hides behind a tree as one of the people from the camp starts to head in his direction. He pulls out his flask and chugs the ale in it before pounding on his chest and entering a battle rage. As soon as it becomes obvious that the people in the camp are involved in the ambush too, Olaf jumps out to swing his warpick, Talon, into the closest one. He draws blood that flows right out of the wound and into Talon, which seems to grow stronger from the wound. He spins his hammer, Sunforger, around in his other hand and brings the pain with a chain of powerful blows. He is able to kill both of his attackers with ease and turns his attention to the others in the camp.
Jadeth claws at the brand the hunter placed on her wrist, but it doesn’t come off. She informs Slender and Matanza that the bounty hunter is a man she recognizes named Riker. Matanza leaps in front of a badly injured Jadeth to hiss at Riker, and he gets furious that a paladin would be protecting such a ruthless murderer. Slender heals Jadeth as Matanza and Riker engage in combat, but it’s clear that the bounty hunter won’t be so easily thrown off his target.
He targets Jadeth with a string of powerful slashes from his giant flaming greatsword. She’s unable to dodge his attacks and falls to the ground. Slender and Matanza exchange a panicked look before Slender summons a huge metal golem behind Riker. Matanza uses their healing hands to pull Jadeth back onto her feet.
She breathes thanks to both of her friends and chugs a potion to heal her wounds. Then she turns to Riker and says that, while she’s typically attracted to bounty hunters, she finds him ugly. He doesn’t know how to respond to that. No one does, honestly…
After Jadeth got knocked out, the darkness she had cast vanished. Juno and the sniper begin firing arrows back and forth with neither of them getting in many good hits. The other archers begin moving towards the camp to get better angles on the battered party members, and Olaf charges at them furiously. Juno takes another hit from the sniper that leaves her poisoned, and the same mysterious elvish whisper echoes through the air.
When Riker sees Jadeth get back up, he shouts for assistance from Virgil. Virgil lets Riker know that his bow won’t let him change his target anymore, and it has its sights on Juno. Slender’s golem slams into Riker to knock him right into Matanza’s fists, and he falls to the ground unconscious. The golem vanishes, and the trio fighting Riker let out a misguided sigh of relief. Virgil sees Riker go down and yells for Dragonbait to heal him. The healer that the party hadn’t previously considered a threat casts a spell, and Riker springs back onto his feet, wholly reinvigorated. Slender and Jadeth stare at him in shock and let out simultaneous cusses, and Matanza hisses again.
Riker, Matanza, and Jadeth begin close combat, but with Slender healing, the two are able to keep up with the hunter’s furious sword slashes. One of the snipers by Olaf notices the healing is preventing Riker from making progress. Right before Olaf can smash him, he fires a perfectly placed arrow to pierce right into Slender’s back. Slender collapses to the ground, and Jadeth looks at Matanza with wide eyes and lets them know she’s out of healing magic.
Olaf smashes the assassin that hit Slender, and Jadeth screams for Juno to turn her attention to Dragonbait. Riker sees Slender go down and hits Jadeth with a powerful uppercut that floors her too. He puts handcuffs on Slender’s wrists while he’s unconscious, but Matanza is able to stabilize his condition. Slender wakes up in shackles and struggles against his cuffs. He sighs that he hates traveling with wanted criminals.
Riker backs up to the edge of the cliff and Matanza sees an opening to get him out of line of sight of the healer. The little kenku runs up and kicks off Riker to send him tumbling down the cliff. They pull Jadeth back to her feet, and she comes to the edge of the cliff to stare down at Riker with her glowing red eyes. Riker growls, “Why won’t you stay down?” Jadeth snorts that she could ask him the same question. She grabs ahold of her medallion and unleashes the full force of her hateful patron god to knock Riker out once more with devastating necrotic magic. She skids down the side of the cliff to land next to his body, exhausted.
Dragonbait weaves between the arrows Juno is firing and the combat that Olaf engaged in to leap into the stream. He swims at high speed and launches out of the water downstream to be staring at Jadeth again. She spots him, and exhales a quiet, “fuck.” He waves his hand with glowing light, and Riker again gets back onto his feet. He slashes at Jadeth from where he’s on the ground next to her, and she gasps out a surrender right before he can finish her off. The glowing eyes in her mask of shadows extinguish in defeat. She begs for him to not hurt her friends and offers out her wrists with her head down. Riker nods and cuffs her.
Matanza leaps over where the two of them are, and makes a confused peep when they see Jadeth surrendering. Slender yells at her for giving up, but she confesses that she’s all out of magic and on the brink of passing out again. Matanza turns their attention to where Juno is engaging with Dragonbait to give her some aid when the lizard pulls out a huge sword.
Riker lifts Jadeth over his shoulder and begins to retreat. Slender sees them leaving and shape changes into a snake to slip out of his own handcuffs. He glances between where Olaf and Juno are in combat, but he decides to save Jadeth before Riker can get away. He whips out his crossbow and fires a bolt right into Riker’s shoulder. The bounty hunter collapses to the ground one final time. Jadeth lands on top of him and thanks the bard for saving her life. Slender tells her they can just call it even from the gold incident.
Before Dragonbait is able to wake Riker, Matanza leaps from a bush to slam a fist into his head. He stumbles back in a daze, and Juno follows through with a quick slash of her mithril longsword. Slender picks Jadeth up and spins her around so she can aim an eldritch blast to rip right through Dragonbait’s arm. Their sword flips through the air and embeds in the dirt next to them.
Slender runs back over and prepares to give Olaf an assist with his lute, but Olaf begins sprinting back across the bridge towards the group. They notice that he’s still being pursued by one of the archer assassin’s. Slender sighs at himself for wasting his bardic inspiration on someone that’s retreating, but Juno steps forward. She sheathes her sword and pulls out a crossbow to fire a shot with pinpoint accuracy right into the other archer’s eye.
Dragonbait whistles for help, and suddenly Virgil appears next to him. He’s a skinny, pale man with bleach white hair that’s holding an ancient looking bow. The most striking thing about him is the scar carved into his cheek and through his eye. There’s a magicanical eyepiece covering the injury. He glares at Juno with the most venomous gaze before pulling a crystal from Dragonbait’s pouch. He warns her that he will hunt her to the ends of the earth before shattering the crystal. In a burst of light, Virgil and Dragonbait are gone, and the group is once again alone in the forest.
Olaf heads towards the camp to search it for any good loot. Juno frees Jadeth from her handcuffs, and the tiefling turns her attention to Riker. Her mask’s eyes begin gleaming red again as she approaches where he’s laying on the ground. In a terrified rage, she grabs Dragonbait’s sword from where it fell and raises it high above her head. Slender pockets Dragonbait’s arm, and looks over to see what Jadeth is doing. She glares down at Riker and gets ready to stab the weapon into his chest while he’s lying unconscious on the ground.
Slender and Matanza both immediately intervene. Slender tells her that the fight’s over and that Riker technically showed her mercy when he didn’t need to, but she doesn’t yield. She doesn’t turn her gaze from her target, but asks Juno what Juno would do in her place. Juno traces a hand over the arrow wound in her shoulder and admits she doesn’t know. Matanza gives her a sad peep, so she finally concedes and cuffs Riker.
This rouses him, and he looks between the cuffs on his hands then up and Jadeth and lets out a defeated laugh. She demands that he gives her a reason not to kill him right there and then, but he scoffs that he doesn’t want mercy from someone that would kill her own wife. Jadeth brings the sword closer to his throat and snarls that she never meant to harm Lunara, but Riker doesn’t care to hear it.
Matanza gets between the two of them and mimics to ask why Riker was hunting for Jadeth. He tells the kenku to check his pouch. Matanza reaches into it and pulls out a wanted poster with Jadeth’s name and face on it. Matanza turns to her to ask for answers, and she looks away with a shaky sigh.
She admits that she was the heir to the throne in the kingdom of Caldra. When she was young, her mentor encouraged her to make a deal with a god she knew very little about in exchange for powerful magic. She hadn’t learned how to properly control it when a group of assassin’s broke into her palace. She tried to defend her home, but her spells backfired and ignited the palace in a dangerous, unnatural blaze. The flame killed the assassins, but not without killing her servants, guards, mother, father, and wife. Now her uncle has been hunting her for regicide, forcing her to hide behind a mask. Not wanting to lose her new friend, she begs for Matanza’s understanding, and they look between her and the bounty hunter expectantly.
Jadeth takes the cuffs off of Riker and tells him to get out of her sight. He looks at her in disbelief, having fully expected her to murder him. He nods once and retreats into the forest. She collapses onto the ground and lets the group know she needs to be alone for a moment. Juno leads Matanza and Slender over to the camp.
Olaf comes out of one of the tents with a barrel of ale on one shoulder and a bottle of nice wine in his free hand. He grins at Juno and offers the bottle out, but she eyes the inside of the biggest tent suspiciously before splitting from the group. Slender looks around for any spare gold, but Olaf had already evenly divided all the loot he found. He gives Slender his share, and the bard grumbles his appreciation for the small coin purse. Matanza sits down next to the campfire and begins preparing a meal.
Juno slips inside the largest tent and begins sifting through the various documents and storage. She finds more wanted posters of herself and Jadeth along with maps detailing their previous locations. The people that had attacked the group had clearly been tracking them for a while. Juno finds a picture of Virgil and a little tiefling girl. She recognizes the girl as one of the tieflings that was being tested on in the lab back in her old kingdom, Ivaluna. She calls for Jadeth to come see what she found, and the warlock steps inside the tent silently. Juno offers her the documents and tells her that the two of them need to come clean. She agrees, so Juno gathers everyone around the fire.
Juno tells them that the assassin after her knew about her from her old life. She gathers everyone around the fire and makes a grave face before relaying the story of how she came to Par’Adeus.
Jadeth repeats what she told Matanza and Slender over by the road, and Juno lets them know that if Virgil had a daughter who was hurt by Ivander, he’s not going to stop hunting her. Slender smiles since it means he may get a chance to steal his bow, and Jadeth snaps that the bow was clearly cursed and targeting Juno. Juno shakes her head and asks if they can do something to take her mind off her past.
Olaf suggests drinking, and Jadeth is quick to side with him. He tosses Jadeth the bottle of wine that he found, and she rips the cork off to take a long swig. He fills his flask with ale and they clink the drinks together. Matanza, Slender, and Juno watch as the two of them get more and more inebriated. Jadeth fetches a table that she dumps all the maps and hunting supplies off of and slams her arm down in an armwrestling challenge for Olaf.
Olaf lets out a hearty chuckle before downing another drink and accepting her challenge. Olaf nearly gets her arm down, but Slender calls out that he found more fancy ale. Olaf loses focus for just a second, but Jadeth doesn’t miss it. She pushes him back and pounds his arm into the table triumphantly. He shakes his head and moves aside for Slender to slide over and try to arm wrestle her. Everyone looks at Slenders noodle arms, then at the hammered tiefling, and they make concerned faces. Jadeth accepts his challenge, and Juno reminds her not to break any bones. Slender’s match doesn’t last very long with Jadeth being victorious.
The tiefling stands up and flicks her tails around in satisfaction, declaring herself as the strongest person in the camp. Juno walks up and flicks her on her goggles before tugging her back towards the table by her scarf. She sits Jadeth down and puts an arm on the table with an innocent eyebrow raise. Jadeth grabs her arm, but as they begin, Juno winks. Jadeth’s focus goes out the window, and Juno easily crushes her. Jadeth stares after Juno as she gets up and grabs the bottle of wine, and Olaf comes to pick the tiefling up with another ale.
Slender pulls out a dice and asks if anyone would be interested in gambling. Juno says she wouldn’t mind swindling him out of some of the money he owes her. Olaf and Jadeth agree that it would be fun, even though both of them are too drunk to follow what’s happening. Slender and Juno both roll perfectly, and they turn their attention to the drunks. Olaf busts after rolling just a bit too high.
Jadeth stares at her dice for a long moment before very obviously shuffling through her bag to pull out her weighted die. Slender and Juno both glare at her in disbelief, and Juno asks if she really thought she was going to get away with cheating. She shyly slips it back in her bag and goes back over to Olaf.
As evening falls, Slender asks if everyone wants to crash in his magic mansion. Jadeth and Juno may have their own house, but they’re both interested in how Slender decorated his. They walk in the dimensional door, and no one is surprised at what they see. The gilded marble foyer is decorated with huge gold statues, giant chandeliers, and expensive rugs. Three large (very much alive) dogs come running up to greet Slender and ignore the others. Olaf walks along the side of the main entrance and cracks open a door. He and Jadeth peek in to see a room full of sharks. The entire mansion truly screams Slenderbard.
In the morning, the group is finally able to make it to the orc village. They take their positions as they begin their plan to appear as a traveling circus. Juno flips up her hood, and Slender gets to the front of the line to introduce them as the Ashen Cabaret. None of the orcs know what that means, but they are interested.
The group explains they’re a circus and that tonight is orcs night, so they traveled all the way here to perform for the orcs’ warlord. An ogre approaches and asks why they smell like elves. Jadeth, convinced she can’t possibly fuck this up twice (she did but i got to reroll), lies that they were previously playing for elves, and their stench tends to linger. The ogres nod and head back over to their guard posts. Slender groans and tosses Juno his mask of the beast and a vial of perfume to hide herself better. No one asks why he had perfume, but did anyone really need to?
As they walk into the orc village, a number of orc merchants try to get everyone’s attention. Slender heads over to check out the inflated prices, and Jadeth looks over the table of bone jewelry. Slender picks up a bone ring and tries it on, and the orcs running the table are looking at him with puppy dog eyes, hoping he’ll make a purchase. Slender says he likes their stuff, and they both eagerly look at him. Jadeth tosses them some gold in exchange for the bone necklace at their table and puts it in her bag. The one grabs it and looks at the other with excited eyes. Slender buys the ring on his finger, and both the orcs thank them.
One of the orc warchiefs stops them before they can head further into the village to ask what they’re act is supposed to be. Slender whips his lute off his back and begins strumming a melody, and Jadeth lights a tiny fire in her palm and points at it. The chief look down at Olaf and asks what he can do. Jadeth laughs and says that Olaf is their bearded lady, the warchief kneels down and says he’s a very pretty lady. He introduces himself as the chief of horticulture, and informs them that there are many chiefs in the settlement of Volas. They ask if he plans to attend their show, and he says that he’s been focusing heavily on their crop problems. Matanza peeps that they can help with them, so Olaf tails the kenku and the warchief over to their fields.
Juno informs Jadeth and Slender that she’s going to begin scouting for the warlord before splitting from them too. Jadeth looks for a good table to set up their ticket sales booth at, but she notices someone trapped in a cage just off the main path. She lets Slender take over getting a booth ready and walks over, finding a battered noble behind the bars.
Jadeth approaches the man that is wearing Caldran noble attire. She changes the pitch of her voice to ask what he did to end up in the cage. He says that he was arrested for going against the Caldran King, Alastor, by supporting Jadeth the Godslayer as the rightful heir of the throne. He doesn’t recognize her in her mask of shadows and mercenary attire. She’s both touched that someone still believed in her, and horrified that Alastor was killing her supporters. She pulls down her mask and goggles and gives the noble a faint smile. He whispers her name and begs for her help. He introduces himself as Jackson Gray, and tells her that the orcs are planning to have him for dinner. She promises that she won’t let that happen and heads back over to Slender to begin reconsidering the plan.
Olaf and Matanza look out at the sad looking fields of dying crops, and Matanza notices the issue immediately. The problem is that they have trouble communicating the problem. They try to inform the orcs that the crops are non-native to this climate and require a greenhouse to grow. Matanza writes down instructions for the orcs, and Olaf reads them out. The orcs thank them and celebrate that a better food supply will make it significantly easier to conquer Port Battleborn. Matanza and Olaf both exchange a concerned look before heading back into the main camp. Juno informs them she hasn’t had any luck locating the warlord.
One of the orcs overhears and tells them that the warlord, Vola, can be found in the palace atop the cliffs. They wonder how it’s possible that an orc is living in a palace, but as they begin to approach it becomes very obvious that the palace was stolen. They walk through dwarven ruins as they approach the main door, and Olaf has to focus very hard on maintaining his temper.
They enter the dwarven palace and find a huge orc sitting on a throne. One of the other orcs approaches and introduces them as Ashen Cabaret. She asks why they came. Slender plays his song again and Jadeth showcases her fire, but Vola waves her hand dismissively at the tiefling. She lets her know that her magic is pathetic and nothing she hasn’t seen before. Stunned, Jadeth swings Thunderstick off her back and points it at the ceiling, asking if the warlord had ever seen magic like it. She pulls the trigger and it blasts a hole into the roof. Vola stands from her throne and approaches Jadeth menacingly. She shrinks back and lets Vola know she’s happy to fix the damages.
A human woman comes out of the room behind the throne and looks up at the ceiling. She calls out to Vola not to worry, and with a wave of her hand the hole in the ceiling is repaired. Jadeth retreats back towards Olaf and Juno and bows her head in apology. She sees that the woman is wearing the sigil of the New Baharuth Empire, and realizes that she must be using the orcs to attack at Caldran territory and gain a New Baharuth foothold on the Eastern Shores of Par’Adeus. The woman introduces herself as Vola’s partner, Amalia.
Juno tries to detect Amalia’s thoughts to get a better read on the situation, but her spell is blocked. The woman gives her a knowing smile, thoroughly unnerving the group even further. Slender tries to teleport them back outside with another spell, but she blocks that too, so they just exit through the door like losers.
Olaf explodes in his rage once they are out of sight of any of the orcs. He wants Vola’s head for what she would have done to the dwarves that used to live in the ruined homes around him. Jadeth picks up a stick and begins drawing a map in the sand. She addresses the obvious issues with their current plan, but lets them know she already has the beginnings of another. She asks Slender to rescue Jackson gray by offering the orcs food from his magic mansion, then she gives him, Olaf, and Matanza the job of beginning an orcish uprising to revolt against Vola. Olaf smashes his fist into his open palm, letting Jadeth know he’s game for some violence.
Juno notices a trend and asks Jadeth where she falls into the plan this time. Jadeth looks back towards the palace and asks Juno if she can come with her, as she’s not confident that she can handle her leg of the plan alone. When Juno asks what that part of the plan is, Jadeth pulls her goggles onto her forehead and tells Juno that she’s going to introduce herself as the former heir to the Caldran throne to Amalia.